Excitons bound to nitrogen complexes in heavily doped GaAs1-xNx grown on GaAs misoriented substrates

Dilute GaAs1-zNx alloys were grown by molecular beam epitaxy on (0 0 1)-oriented GaAs substrates and misoriented 2degrees towards (1 10) with two Ga and As atoms, in the same plane terminated with single Ga and As bonds, respectively. Photoluminescence spectra analysis reveals several features we have attributed to excitons bound to isoelectronic traps. The dependence of these features on substrate misorientation, growth temperature, rapid thermal annealing (RTA) and thermal annealing is presented and studied. We have shown that these features are very sensitive to these parameters and can affect the statistical distribution of nitrogen atoms, explaining the striking difference in photoluminescence (PL) spectra. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.